


you get me so high

by kenhwan (orphan_account)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Imaginative Rewriting Of Stuff That Actually Happened, M/M, Semi-Canon Compliant, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 20:50:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15009185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/kenhwan
Summary: In a C-Drama, it was dramatic and touching. In real life, it was uncomfortable and awkward and pitiful.





	you get me so high

**Author's Note:**

> hi i love the song _you get me so high_ by the nbhd ( and every song by the nbhd ) so if u look at the lyrics it loosely follows that song !

Zitao hoped that it was worth it for Yifan to leave EXO, he knew it was for Lu Ha, as he was really out here living his best life. 

He told himself that at least, it was worth it for Zitao to leave, and he repeated this everytime the aching of his old memories came back. And everytime, he did the obvious solution: Text Lu Han. 

Exo just. . . .Wasn’t the same. At first, it was so good to be new, and they worked hard but they were rewarded with the thought of debuting together. But after they debuted, everything changed. It wasn’t ‘you get to debut if you work hard!’, it was, ‘you have to work harder, and harder, and even when you can’t breathe and you can’t stand, you have to work even harder.’

 

They’d yelled and cried and celebrated when they’d recieved their first win in 2013, hugging, and that was rewarding enough. He knew they’d get a break after that, he was sure.

But they didn’t. They kept working hard, all exhausted, but happy to be achieving their dreams, finally. In the years 2011 to 2012, he’d grown hopelessly in love with Yifan, drowning in his adoration for the older. 

In early 2013, he’d told Yifan how he felt. 

The older all but refused to give him a definite answer, skipping around the subject, but still giving Zitao hugs and skinship when he wished, just as him and the younger did before the confession. They’d always been close and Zitao had always been touchy, so he didn’t see anything different from before.

Yifan had seen articles about the touches one day, an american article on a k-pop news site, reading _Netizens Question Relationship Between EXO Member’s Kris And Tao_. He tried to ignore it to his best ability, as those sites were usually for nothing but senseless internet drama, but ultimately fell as he clicked on the link.

The article was about nothing less than the perhaps more intimate touches exchanged between the two males, a few gif files attached showing affection that Yifan hadn’t even thought before expressing, as per what was normal between them. He blinked, feeling uncomfortable, moving himself away from Zitao’s napping body a few centimetres on their couch. 

When Zitao had woken up, something was terribly, terribly wrong. 

-

In May 2014, in the midst of their Overdose promotions, Yifan had left EXO. Without a trace, without a goodbye, without a word to Zitao. And he’d been crushed. Obviously, it’d been hard for all of them, but whether they knew of his feelings for the older or not, they knew he’d taken the worst for it. His guardian, the person that was always there to hug him for the best or worst reasons, wiped his tears on the ever occurring occasion that he would cry, over a mean comment or a dog video or anything between. 

Zitao was Yifan’s, and everyone knew. He felt safety with Yifan, ever since their trainee days, when they would practice dancing by learning other group’s routines or making up their own. He remembers when he couldn’t quite get Taemin’s solo part right in _Replay_ and had finally got it, cheerfully yelling, _’Duizhang, did you see that?’_. He gotten a warm hug in response, with quiet praise. 

And now, he was gone. All of him. 

-

After he’d left the group himself, he’d tried his very best to catch up with Yifan and Luhan. Luhan was the easy one, happy to speak to Zitao and help him start himself by his lonesome, without a company or managers to direct everything he did. Of course, he ended up hiring managers, but _they_ fit to _his_ needs, instead of him being forced to comply with consequences if he chose not to follow. 

Yifan, was not near as easy. Zitao had been left on read too many times, and had started to give up. ‘This is the last one I’m sending,’ He’d told himself as he typed it out, teary eyed. 

_gege, please meet up with me soon,_

And two weeks later, he’d gotten a response. Yifan had a single layover in Qingdao in the next month, and was willing to meet with him for a short amount of time before he had to go back to his hotel. 

-

Uneasily, Yifan had sit down in Zitao’s apartment. Zitao had been sniffling ever since Yifan had rang his buzzer to his perhaps _too luxurious_ complex, and he wasn’t prepared to deal with a crying Zitao so he was beyond glad the younger had managed to keep it together. 

It’d stayed kept together for all of 10 minutes, before Zitao broke down and it all hit the fan and turned into a shitshow. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry Yifan-Gege, I’m so sorry,” He’d sobbed out, collapsing to his knees on the floor in front of where Yifan sat. In a C-Drama, it was dramatic and touching. In real life, it was uncomfortable and awkward and pitiful. 

He sunk to the floor , to Zitao’s level and put a hand on the younger’s shoulder, elliciting a flinch and a choked sob from him. He tried to say something, but never much being one for words, it just left the other more time to cry. “I’m so sorry, I should’ve never told you, I should’ve just- I should’ve-” And the rest of the sentence was a garbled mess. 

After about an hour, Zitao was in Yifan’s lap, clinging onto him and quietly sniffling into his shoulder like a depressive koala, the older’s large hands running through the back of his hair. 

“Zitao I -- I didn’t leave because of you, I never said I did. . ..” He stumbled and stuttered over words as he always had, bringing familiarity and settling it into Zitao’s bones, relaxing him even in the slightest. 

“That isn’t what I wanted to do for myself it-- It was you guys’ dream, and it wasn’t mine and it wasn’t fair for me to interrupt it for all of you. I was just a passing part of it.” He’d ended, pushing some words out breathily like he was struggling to even speak. 

“Gege,” Zitao had whispered into the elder’s shirt, letting out a deep breath with the word. 

“You’re my best friend, Zitao -- You - You always have been. I’ll always love you and. . . I-I should’ve told you that earlier.” And then Yifan stops talking. 

-

Three months later, on different days between L.A. and Qingdao, Kris Wu, billboard chart toper and aspiring new artist, gets a call from _sweet boy_ on his phone at 3am. He leaves his ringer on, no matter what, because sometimes Zitao needs support when Yifan is asleep and vice versa. 

When he picks up his phone, all he hears on the end is a soft voice, and Zitao must be calling because the crowds of his own home town concert are making him anxious, because he hears cheers, and the noise of a backstage crew, but the thing that stands out most is the happy but shaky, “我爱你”


End file.
